Also by Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake
Trialogues at the Edge of the West
Also by Ralph Abraham
Chaos, Gaia, Eros
Dynamics, the Geometry of Behavior (with Chris Shaw)
Foundations of Mechanics (with Jerrold Marsden)
Manifolds, Tensor Analysis, and Applications (with Jerrold Marsden and Tudor Ratiu)
Chaos in Discrete Dynamical Systems (with Laura Gardini and Christian Mira)
Also by Terence McKenna
The Invisible Landscape (with Dennis McKenna)
Psilocybin: The Magic Mushroom Growers' Guide (with Dennis McKenna)
Food of the Gods The Archaic Revival True Hallucinations
Also by Rupert Sheldrake
A New Science of Life
The Presence of the Past
The Rebirth of Nature
Seven Experiments that Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science
Natural Grace (with Matthew Fox)
The Physics of Angels (with Matthew Fox)

RUPERT SHELDRAKE
TERENCE McKENNA
RALPH ABRAHAM
THE EVOLUTIONARY MIND
Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable

Trialogue Press

THE EVOLUTIONARY MIND Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable
Publisher: Trialogue Press
P.O. Box 1360, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
Phone: 408-425-7436
Fax: 408-425-8612
Email: ahraham@aerialpress.com
Copyright © 1998 by Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna and Ralph Abraham. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

by any means or in any form whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in literary

articles or reviews.
First Edition; Typography by Page [ Curtis Printed in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Sheldrake, Rupert.
The Evolutionary Mind: Trialogues at the edge of the unthinkable
by Rupert Sheldrake, Terence McKenna, and Ralph Abraham.
xvi + 194 pp. cm.
ISBN 0-942344-13-8 (pbk.)
1. Cosmology. 2. Panpsychism. 3. Consciousness. 4- Gaia hypothesis. 5. Chaotic behavior in systems. 6. Religion and science — 1946. I.

McKenna, Terence K., 1946- . II. Sheldrake, Rupert. III. Title.
98-90256 CIP
10 987654321

In Memory of Father Bede Griffiths

Contents
Preface......................................................xiii
Chapter 1. Grassroots Science..............................1

The increasing predominance of big science and large institutions. Public alienation from science. The possibility of radical research on a
budget of less than $50. How amateurs could help revitalize science. The role of computer networks. The continuing need for institutional
science. A complementary relationship between grassroots and institutional research. Holistic medicine and low-cost medical research.
Declining science budgets. The popularity of dinosaurs. Psychedelic explorations as an example of a grassroots research. Radical research by
students. The revitalizing of scientific education.

Chapter 2. Psychedelics, Computers, and Mathematics . .19

Nearly all innovators in computer graphics take psychedelics. Ralph's experiences in the 1960s. Visual mathematics and psychedelic
imagination. The need for emotional involvement. Visual metaphors and the footprints of meaning. Psychedelic experience is made of mind
but not just our minds. The language of patterns. The decline of literacy and the rise of visual intelligence. Television as an addictive drug.
Computer graphics and the forms of flowers and beetles. Mathematical landscapes. Mathematics a marriage of heaven and earth.